11. His Butler, However You Please
His Butler, However You Please (その執事、如何様, Sono Shitsuji, Ikasama) is the eleventh episode of season one of the Kuroshitsuji anime. Summary Elizabeth Midford and Paula arrive at the Phantomhive Manor to celebrate Ciel's birthday. When she hands over her present, she notices that Ciel has his family ring back. So, she takes back the present and she and Paula leave. Sebastian Michaelis asks if they should have a party for his birthday, but Ciel declines, finding the memories of finding his parents dead in their burning home on his tenth birthday to be too painful. Paula and Elizabeth are stuck in traffic when the Shard of Hope glows. Elizabeth looks outside and sees a puppet-like man playing a music box and he disappears. Enchanted, she leaves the carriage. However, by the time Paula notices this, Elizabeth is long gone. Elizabeth follows the music to a doll shop, where she finds this puppet-like man, who tells her the Shard of Hope does not want her as its master. He tells her, though, that her eyes are filled with melancholy, making her tear up. She explains what she was doing with the ring. The man tells her she can have whatever she like but says the only suitable gift would be her. At the Phantomhive manor, Sebastian informs Ciel of Elizabeth going missing, and he decides they will move out. Ciel orders Sebastian to gather more information on the recent string of kidnappings. The puppet-like man approaches his master and asks what the doll should be made of. He tells the puppet-like man to make it out of "wax and stone, my fair lady." Grell Sutcliff is seen running on rooftops, saying he can feel it coming. He approaches Ciel and Pluto, finding the latter of the two attractive. Pluto takes off, ignoring Grell, and leads Ciel to the doll shop, where an Elizabeth doll is sitting in the window. Grell states that it is a puppeteer shop of a man named Drossel Keinz. Pluto bursts through the window and picks up the Elizabeth doll, which has her hair ribbon attached. Through the back door, he sees a large manor. Although he finds Grell reprehensible, he orders Grell to protect him, in return for allowing Grell to play with Sebastian for a day. Inside the manor, Drossel sings about how he will make the dolls in tune to the song London Bridge is Falling Down. He then approaches an unconscious Elizabeth and adjusts the ribbon on her dress. Grell, Pluto, and Ciel burst into the manor, where they find an entranced child, wearing a replica of the Shard of Hope. She begins to strangle Ciel with an unnatural strength, but Grell saves him. He moves in to kill the child, thinking her a doll, but Ciel orders him to stop. However, Grell slices her throat anyway, and sawdust pours out, revealing that it was just a life-like, life-sized doll. Drossel comes out of the room, stating that the dolls needed to be stronger, and calls out more dolls with his London Bridge-esque tune. He then leaves, and Grell tries to charge in, but these dolls are made of steel, making it impossible for him to cut them. Ciel orders him to "play" with the dolls, while he chases down Drossel. Ciel wonders if they are actually just dolls, or if the kidnapped girls had been made into dolls. Drossel appears again and begins singing that he will make Ciel into a doll of silver and gold. Ciel continues through the mansion and finds masks hanging on a wall that are also singing the same song. This seems to bother Ciel, as he covers his ears while continuing through the manor. At the top of the stairs, he finds, on the floor, the same mark he had been branded with when he had been enslaved. Sebastian enters through the window, and questions if, on this birthday, he will lose his fiancée. Characters in Order of Appearance *Finnian *Mey-Rin *Paula *Elizabeth Midford *Ciel Phantomhive *Sebastian Michaelis *Baldroy *Tanaka *Rachel Phantomhive *Vincent Phantomhive *Drossel Keinz *Grell Sutcliff *Pluto Category:Episodes Category:Kuroshitsuji